Fort Lewis soldiers on fire lines

Canada, Australia and New Zealand also helping out

By AMY ROLPH, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Cpl. Jarod Ophiem never expected to be fighting a battle on American soil. He has served overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now he's fighting in Winthrop on the east side of the Cascades, battling wildfires that have blazed for several weeks.

From firefights to fighting fires -- it's a whole different world.

"It's a lot different," said Ophiem, 21. "There's the fire and the smoke and the trees falling as opposed to bullets and explosives, but I think what I'm doing here is just as important."

Ophiem is one of about 550 soldiers from Fort Lewis who have responded to the large demand for fire crews in Eastern Washington. The soldiers will fight the flames alongside thousands of other firefighters, some flown in from other countries to help.

After a crash course in combating fires, most of what "Task Force Blaze" is doing is what civilian firefighters term "mop-up," he said. The task force keeps an eye on burned areas to make sure the trees or grass don't flare up again.

The job isn't physically demanding, but Ophiem, who has been battling blazes for about two weeks, said his lungs had some adjusting to do.

"The only thing that's really difficult is the smoke in the air," he said. "It's all over in the air."

Eight large-scale fires were burning in the state on Tuesday. Five were burning in the northeastern part of the state in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, but three others were in the southeast corner of the state, the south Puget Sound area and the Olympic Peninsula, according to InciWeb, a incident report site of the U.S. Forest Service.

Two smaller fires were burning Tuesday near Granite Falls and Colville, but fire officials expected those flare-ups to be extinguished by Friday morning.

Ophiem is hopeful that as a rainy fall draws nearer, he'll be back at Fort Lewis soon.

"Things are looking great," he said. "The fire seems to be under more control every day. The parts that have been burned are pretty much cold, so it's turning up pretty well."

"This is a bad fire season around the country," she said. "And in Washington and Oregon, it's just a really bad fire season."

Usually fire crews from other parts of the country respond to intense regional blazes like the ones in the Northwest, but because firefighters elsewhere have been occupied, an international response was needed, said Mills.

Crews from Canada, Australia and New Zealand are fighting fires in the Northwest, alongside civilian firefighters, Department of Corrections offenders, state agency responders and other volunteers.

But now that fires in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida are under control, she anticipates even more help for Washington state.

"Last week, we reached a point where we thought, 'My goodness, what are we going to do,' " Mills said.

The last year firefighting resources were stretched this thin was in 2000, when blazes burned in irregularly high numbers in Montana, she said.

The biggest threat in Washington remains the large Tripod wildfire in the north-central area. It grew by nearly 3,000 acres in 24 hours, but more favorable weather conditions were helping firefighters on Tuesday.